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humanpurposes · 9 months

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Just for a Moment, part iv

Tom Bennett has a habit of climbing through her bedroom window whenever he's in trouble // Main Masterlist

Tom Bennett x OFC

Warnings: 18+, mentions of war and death, friends to lovers, angst, fluff, smut, Tom Bennett's daddy issues, death, mourning/grief

Words: 8100

A/n: This acts as a final part and an epilogue. Also available to read on AO3.

In early June, Lois Bennett knocks on the Wheelans’ front door. She has tears in her bright blue eyes and her hands are shaking.

“It’s our Tom,” she says, when Kitty has sat her down at the kitchen table and made her a cup of strong tea. “He’s missing.”

A hole tears itself in her chest.

His ship had been part of the evacuation at Dunkirk– a triumph, so the headlines say. But that’s the way of the world, she thinks, men lay down their lives, others have their lives taken from them by force, and all the while the press and the politicians declare each one a step towards peace.

“You think Churchill and Hitler give a flying fuck about peace?” her father says one night as he nurses a glass of whisky. “They want victory.”

Every night as she lies in bed, she imagines some new possibility. Tom could have run to safety, sought refuge in the town or gone elsewhere. Maybe he’s just biding his time, maybe he’s on his way back to her.

He can’t be dead. He just can’t be.

He promised he would come home to her.

Monday 2nd September, 1940

She doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the sirens, that blunt, whirring, wailing noise that sparks a primal fear in her chest. Somehow she always wakes up before they go off, like her instincts can alert her of what’s coming just a second before the noise begins.

The baby starts to scream from the space beside her– since Lois has started working as an ambulance driver, she leaves Vera with them most nights. With shaking hands, Kitty takes her into her arms, keeping her close to her chest as she fixes a woolly hat over her head.

“I’m sorry darling, I know,” she says, pulling the hat over Vera’s ears. She keeps meaning to buy some earmuffs for her, but then, it’s not her baby.

It’s pitch black in the house, it has to be. No lights or candles allowed unless you want the Germans to drop a bomb on your house. Kitty keeps one hand on the wall as she finds the stairs, and hurries down to the kitchen. Mam and dad’s footsteps follow behind her.

They have a routine by now. Dad grabs a coleman and a box of matches, mam grabs a photo from the front room and a basket with bread and blackberry jam, and Kitty holds tight to Vera. Then they file out the back door, into the garden, down the ladder into the shelter. Dad shuts the door, lights the lamp, and finally they can all see each other.

Then comes the waiting. Some nights dad sings The Fields of Athenry and Kitty joins in. Vera seems to love singing, her eyes go wide and she lays completely still against Kitty, hypnotised by the humming in her chest.

After a few slices of bread to keep them going, dad lies along the bench and closes his eyes and mam takes Vera into her arms. “Get some rest, love,” she tells Kitty.

How can she? Beyond the shelter the world is nothing but uncertainty, sirens sounding, bombs booming, spotlights and distant fires cutting through the darkness. Only the morning will tell what the true damage is, once the sun starts to rise and the smoke and dust have settled. Houses and livelihoods will be left as rubble. More lives lost, people who didn’t sign up, people who couldn’t, people who thought they might at least be safe in their own homes.

She looks at the photograph mam always brings in from the house. It’s of the four of them, Eddie, Art, Stevie and Kitty, lined up in the front room before the eldest two Wheelans left for the continent, over a year ago now. Eddie and Art look handsome in their uniforms and Stevie is uncharacteristically glum. He hated that he didn’t sign up sooner, he said he didn’t want to look like the one being left behind.

They all came home after Dunkirk, a few precious weeks when the world felt normal again.

Only not quite.

Because she still spent every night alone, and Tom Bennett was still gone.

“Where’s Douglas?”

Kitty snaps her attention to mam, as dad starts to stir on the bench.

“Eh?” he grumbles, “he’ll be along now in a minute, I’m sure.”

They wait.

And keep waiting.

The bombs dropping on Longsight are louder than they’ve ever been before. Closer than they’ve ever been before. Each thunderous crash rocks the ground and the walls of their shelter.

BOOM– the roof trembles.

BOOM– dust and dirt fall from above them.

“We’ll be alright, here,” dad says, beckoning Kitty to sit between the two of them.

They huddle together. Kitty curls her knees into her chest like a child and leans into her father’s embrace. Mam has Vera on her lap and places a hand on Kitty’s knee.

BOOM– mam whimpers and Vera is crying again. Dad holds her tighter.

BOOM– Kitty reaches for one of Vera’s tiny hands, and she clutches tightly onto her finger.

Then a final, earsplitting BOOM. The bench jolts beneath them. Kitty clings to her family and squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for something awful to happen.

Only it doesn’t. The bombs become fainter.

They slowly pull away from each other, looking each other in the eyes and nodding, to make sure they’re all alright– as much as they can be.

When the all clear sounds, they make their way back into the house.

Glass litters the floor of the front room. The windows are shattered, so is the glass cabinet with mam’s best china, photographs are cracked. Anything that isn’t broken has been blown back by the force of a hit.

Through the tatters of the curtains and a haze of smoke, a fire burns out on the street.

Dad calls her name as she runs for the front door and yanks it open, but she can’t bring herself to step past the threshold.

The feels the heat against her face, as number 27 has been reduced to a pile of burning rubble.

The AFS arrives in time to stop dad from digging through the remains in search of Douglas himself.

Everything that belongs to the Bennetts is crushed under brick or goes up in flames.

It’s like losing Tom all over again. The house where he grew up, the kitchen where Josie used to feed the Bennett and Wheelan kids ginger beer and sandwiches, the bedroom that smelled of cigarette smoke, where he told her he loved her, exist only as memories.

She doesn’t go to bed that night– there are only a few hours until daylight anyway. She sweeps up the glass in the front room and the bedrooms while dad boards up the window frames. Hardly any light reaches inside the house, the air is still thick and hazy with lingering smoke, so they keep the back door open. It airs the place out, but lets in the cold too.

When Kitty answers the door in the morning, Lois’ back is facing her. She’s still in her uniform with her hair in a neat bun and a helmet in her hand.

“Lois?”

She turns towards Kitty with her lips slightly parted in a passive expression. “Dad’s gone,” she mutters. And once she says it the vacancy melts into grief. “He’s gone,” she cries, “everything’s gone!”

Kitty leads her into the house, but there’s nowhere comfortable to sit. The front room is in tatters and the kitchen is a mess with everything they’ve managed to salvage piled onto the table and chairs.

“Tea?” Kitty asks quietly, but she feels stupid for asking.

Lois leans against the wall and holds her face in her hand as she cries.

Kitty unsurely places a hand on Lois’ shoulder and tries to think of something to say, but all she can think of is “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

First her mam, then Harry, then Tom, now her dad. She must feel like her life is slipping away.

Mam appears from upstairs, dressed for the factory with Vera in her arms.

Kitty frowns as she hands the baby to her. Lois has lost her father and her home in one night, and her mother hardly looks phased.

“There’s still work to be done, Kitty,” she says, grabbing her coat before she leaves through the front door with her head and shoulders straight.

But this is just war. Men die in trenches and on beaches, bombs fall on cities, tragedy unfolds and they Keep Calm and Carry On.

Kitty carries Vera into the kitchen, but she doesn’t like the sound of her mother crying. Her little face goes red and twists before she makes a sound, then she’s crying too, burying her head into Kitty’s chest and clinging to her arms with those small, pudgy hands.

Lois doesn’t look up, like she can’t hear her daughter crying at all.

Sunday 29th September, 1940

Weeks go by. Douglas is interred with his wife, in the churchyard of St Jospeh’s. Kitty spends her days in the shop and her nights in the shelter, rocking Vera through the air raids, humming lullabies and muttering stories about her brave mam and her fearless uncle Tom.

The Wheelans never used to go to church every week, but mam insists now, anything for their family to be kept safe. As they head home, Kitty looks up the hill, to the gravestone she knows is marked Josie Bennett. She pictures Tom and Lois standing by the graveside at the funeral, twelve years ago now. It doesn’t feel that long ago they were all children.

She walks ahead of her parents– dad’s been having trouble with his knees and it slows him down. Her head is hung, she’s staring at her shoes, the same black pair of shoes she wears everywhere.

What’s she got to walk so fast for anyway? Their house doesn’t feel much like a home anymore. They at least have the windows fixed, but she tends to keep her curtains drawn, because where she used to look out to Tom’s bedroom window, there’s just empty space.

What’s the point in rushing home to a house that isn’t safe? That’s ghostly and quiet? That has a bomb shelter instead of a garden? What’s the point in carrying on when surviving the night is something they have to hope for? When each day brings a possibility that Eddie, Art or Steive could be missing or dead? What’s the point in clinging onto hope if Tom is truly gone? What’s the point? What’s the point? What’s the point?

Someone knocks frantically on one of the doors ahead, their door she realises. Her vision is blurry through tears, but she can make out the shape of a tall man, with dirty blond hair.

She blinks.

“Tom?”

His body collides into hers. He hugs her so tightly he crushes her chest but she doesn’t care. He could squeeze the life from her and she wouldn’t care, as long as she gets to hold him. Her hands find their way to grasp at his neck and his hair, pulling him closer and crying silently into his neck.

He doesn’t smell like cigarettes, which she finds unusual. He smells like dirt and sweat, and when he pulls away from her she realises he’s dressed in a khaki blazer, slacks that are too big for him and a mismatching grey shirt.

“What happened–”

He looks frantic, stroking his hands over her hair and down to cup the sides of her face. “Kitty, I’m sorry, I know it’s been a mad few months but where are they, dad and Lois? Are they safe?”

He doesn’t know. How could he? Lois tried to send a letter. Where would it be now? Collecting dust or sitting at the bottom of a pile of unimportant paperwork in a naval office because there was nowhere for it to go.

Her eyes well with tears all over again. His face is leaner, the lines of his jaw and cheeks more defined, the left side of his face littered with bruises and scars. She traces her fingers over his cheekbone, and down to the coarse, blond stubble along his jaw.

“Kitty,” he says, shortly, taking her hand away from his face. “Kitty, where are they? Tell me they’re okay.”

She glances over her shoulder. Mam and dad are approaching them now. Their faces mirror each other, confused, horrified, sympathetic.

“Come on,” she mutters, taking Tom’s hand and dragging him with her as she walks solemnly up Slade Grove.

They stayed joined at the hip as they walk, Kitty curling slightly into his arm, their legs brushing with every stride, bumping into each other and pulling themselves back in.

His hand is warm and his grip is firm, but she can’t stop herself from shivering. As much as she wants to gaze up at him, melt into his embrace again, kiss every inch of his face, she can’t help but feel guilty. He doesn’t ask any more questions, or so much as speak a word, but the concern is written all over him, the clenched jaw and the stiff shoulders that don’t sway as he walks.

She won’t be the one to tell him, she can’t be.

Lois has been living in a boarding house with Connie since the bomb hit. Mam had offered her a place at their house, but Lois wouldn’t take it. Luckily the house isn’t too far away, and when Lois opens the door, she’s utterly stunned.

Kitty waits outside, with her hands behind her back, leaning against the brick wall. Now her hands and her skin feel cold, so she tugs at her coat, keeping it tight around her body to keep out the autumn chill.

For a few moments she wonders if she hasn’t just made the whole thing up; Tom, waiting outside her door, running into her arms and vanishing again. She rubs her fingertips together. She had felt him as she feels her own skin now, she’s sure of it, the scars, the stubble, the hair on the back of his hand.

Tom Bennett, her Tom Bennett, though not quite the same man he was, before whatever happened at Dunkirk, before the war, when his place in her life was vague but at least it was consistent. She knows things will be different again when he comes out of that house.

She hears raised voices through the door, the unmistakable, raspy bass of Tom’s anger. Lois shouts back. Then it goes quiet again.

Her heart leaps out of her chest when the door swings open. Tom slams it shut and turns his head around, frantically, before his eyes find her.

He opens his arms and falls into her.

He lets out a few short gasps for breath as he leans his forehead against her shoulder and wraps his arms tightly around her waist.

She stays like that for as long as he needs, until he pulls back for breath. His face is red, it only makes his eyes seem brighter.

“Sorry,” he mutters with a sniff, “haven’t even said a proper ‘hello’ to you yet.”

Given the circumstances, she thinks that’s forgivable. She runs her hands over the sides of his face, his ears and his overgrown mop of hair.

“Hello,” she says.

Tom smiles, taking one of her hands in hiss and placing a peck to her knuckles. “Hello.”

They walk slowly back to Slade Grove. Tom is a little more subdued, but not quite settled.

She can only imagine the thoughts racing through his head. He wasn’t here to save his father, he wasn’t at the funeral, there was nothing he could save from his own home. Time has slipped by, the formalities have been carried out and Tom couldn’t have stopped any of it from happening.

Mam opens the door, takes one look at Tom, and purses her lips.

Kitty rolls her eyes and pulls Tom into the hallway.

The house has been cleared up a little better recently. They’ve gotten rid of everything that was broken, mended the curtains and the tears in the sofas, only the front room feels empty and impersonal without the china cabinet and the photographs they couldn’t save.

They walk on through to the kitchen, where dad is sitting by the wireless. He stands to take Tom’s hand. “Sorry for your loss, lad,” he says, giving it a short, firm shake.

“Cheers,” Tom mutters, “good to see you again, Mr Wheelan.”

Kitty makes tea and splits her rations of bacon and eggs between her and Tom.

“We were part of the evacuation effort from Dunkirk,” Tom explains, looking up to Kitty as she sits beside him. “I don’t remember much, but I woke up in a hospital in Paris, bullets and shrapnel in my chest, and the doctors were telling me the Nazis had taken the city.”

“Bloody hell,” dad sighs.

Mam sits stiffly in her chair and sips her tea.

“They were telling me I had to register as a prisoner of war, but there was this American bloke, a doctor, he told me they were trying out an escape route through Gibraltar.”

“We thought you were dead,” Kitty says. “Lois showed us the telegram. We all thought you were dead.”

She can see Tom’s hand flinch as if to reach out to her, but he stops himself and clenches his fist. He turns back to her parents across the table. “I had to die, officially like, they had some spare bodies and put my name to some poor bastard with 80% burns–”

Mam clears her throat.

“Sorry,” Tom says, trying not to smile. “Had to walk to Spain, then hitched a ride with these two blokes to Gibraltar. Onto Plymouth from there, and then…” he trails off. He has a distant look in his eyes that reminds her of Lois.

“Home?” dad says.

Tom shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, ‘spose so.”

“Will you stay with Lois?” Kitty asks.

Tom gives her a pointed look.

The raised voices, the slammed door. Maybe not.

“You could stay with us,” she says.

Mam tilts her head. “Now wait a moment–”

“Of course,” dad says, “we’ve got three empty beds upstairs, I’m sure we’ll be able to spare one.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude,” Tom says, slipping his hand under the table and brushing his fingers over Kitty’s knee. She checks her parents aren’t looking at her and tries not to smile.

Dad holds up his hand in the way that means his decision is final. “Not at all, lad. We’ve known you since you were a childer, I think it’s the least we could do for you now.”

Lois drops Vera off at 5 o’clock, the usual time. She doesn’t ask about Tom, in fact she hardly looks Kitty in the eye as she hands the baby into her arms and places a bag by her feet. She presses a quick kiss to Vera’s head, and then she’s gone.

Tom is in the front room, splayed out on one of the sofas, flicking an unlit cigarette through his fingers– because if he smoked in the house, mam would actually kill him. He sits up when Kitty walks in with the baby on her hip.

She sits beside him and places Vera on her lap.

Tom takes one of her little hands, and his thumb is almost the size of her palm. “Can’t believe she named the kid after my fucking canary,” he grumbles.

“Tom,” Kitty chides.

“Fuck, sorry– fuck.”

Vera lets out a vague gurgling sound and Kitty giggles. “Say it enough, it might be her first word.”

He chuckles, and gently waves Vera’s arm about. “When do babies usually start talking?”

“Give her a chance, she can’t even sit up yet.”

He strokes his finger along the baby’s cheek, and grins when he coaxes a smile out of her. But it’s like he stops himself, pressing his lips together as his eyes darken.

“What happened with you and Lois?” Kitty asks.

Tom heaves a heavy breath and takes his hand away from Vera. “I lashed out.”

“Christ, Tom.”

“She left dad alone,” he says.

If she didn’t have a baby in her lap, she thinks she could throttle him. “It wasn’t her fault,” Kitty snaps. “She couldn’t have saved him. No one could have.

He turns to face her with a devastated look in his eyes, the kind of look he makes when he knows she’s right. “How did it happen?”

She shifts Vera in her lap. “We didn’t see, we were in the shelter. We heard the bombs getting closer, and when we heard the all clear…” she blinks a few tears from her eyes. She doesn’t mean to cry, and she feels ridiculous, crying over Tom’s father when he’s sitting beside her.

Tom shifts closer to her, and wipes her cheeks with his thumbs.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

Tom nods, running his hand over Vera’s head. “He died thinking I was gone. He didn’t know I was alright.” He draws his tongue between his lips. “But he’ll be happy now, with mum and that.”

“I hope so,” she says.

“And I didn’t leave things on a bad note,” he says, keeping his eyes on Vera, “like you told me. I shook his hand before I left.”

“See? When has my advice ever let you down?” she says, trying to sound as lighthearted as possible through the thick feeling in her throat.

Tom keeps his chin tilted down but he looks up to her. He looks more peaceful than he did this morning. His lips are settled in their natural curve, his brow is soft, and there’s a sadness in his eyes that he won’t allow to become more than a glisten.

“Never has,” he says with a smile.

He shuffles closer to her, cautiously cupping the side of her face like he’s forgotten how.

She instantly leans into him, bringing their foreheads together until she can feel his breath echoing over her lips.

It’s been so long since she’s felt him in the way she wants. She’s hardly given herself a moment to even realise that he’s here, that her months of anguish are finally done because he’s safe, he’s alive, and he still didn’t break his promise to her.

“I missed you,” she whispers. If she speaks any louder she worries her voice might falter.

Tom draws his thumb over her cheek and nudges his nose against hers. “Kitty,” he utters. His lips twitch like he can’t quite find the words he wants.

“I know,” she breathes. “I know.”

He angles his head a little before he leans in closer and presses a soft kiss to her lips, and her heart breaks a hundred times over. She feels his sadness in the tentative movements of his mouth, like he’s still scared, like he’s waiting for something bad to happen.

So she pours all her longing and reassurance into him, as far as she can without speaking or pausing for breath. She holds onto his neck and deepens their kiss with firm lips and a deft tongue.

She wants to feel him, long after they’ve parted. She wants to remember how he feels, the warmth he gives her, the way his little hums make her feel weightless and set her skin alight.

Now, in this moment, the world feels perfect.

Until Vera makes a whining noise that means she wants attention.

Kitty pulls away with a short gasp, moving Vera to her hip and she stands and tries to bounce her into content.

“She’s probably hungry,” Kitty says, and nods to the bag Lois dropped off earlier. “Her formula’s in there, bring it into the kitchen.”

Tom does as he’s told and pulls the tub out of the bag. He walks into the corridor first, and as Kitty goes to follow he stops, and turns to her.

“You look good with a baby by the way,” he says with a grin.

She scorns herself for the thrill it sends through her stomach. “Don’t, you’ll give my mam a heart attack.”

At 6 o’clock, they put the lights out for the blackout, with only the fading sunset to light the kitchen as Kitty makes a vegetable stew and spuds for dinner. Thankfully they have some beef stock she can throw in as well, which stops dad from complaining that “just veg doesn’t count as a meal.”

Evenings are tense and uncertain now. They all try to make small talk with each other over dinner, but silences are frequent and imposing.

Once they’ve eaten, Kitty puts Vera to bed and mam and dad head upstairs shortly after, hoping to get as much sleep as they can before the sirens start.

Tom sits in the lounge, on a sofa by the window, keeping the curtains open just an inch, but all there is to see is black.

“It’s cloudy,” he says as Kitty appears in the doorway in her nightie. “Can’t even see the moon.”

She comes to join him, curling up into his lap and placing her head on his shoulder. “That’s good news for us.”

Tom wraps his arms around her and kisses her head.

The sky stays cloudy and quiet all night, no droning of planes, no sirens.

All she hears is the sound of his breathing and his lips against her skin as he nuzzles into her neck, kissing and nipping at her skin.

“Did you miss me?” she finds herself saying.

Tom pauses and pulls his face away from her with a furrowed brow. “Do you really think I thought of anything else?” he says. “It was all that got me through, the thought of coming home to you.”

In the morning she wakes with a sliver of sunlight creeping over her eyes, still in Tom’s arms, still clinging to him.

Lois comes to collect Vera before Kitty leaves for her shift at the shop.

“Is Tom with you?” Lois asks as kitty lowers Vera into the pram.

Kitty hesitates. “Yes,” she says, bracing herself for Lois to storm in and start shouting at him.

He appears in the doorway, with his head down and his hands in his pockets.

“I’m going to the churchyard,” Lois says to him, “if you’d like to see mum and dad.”

Tom looks to Kitty and she sighs, overemphasising the movement of her chest as she breathes. Don’t leave it on a bad note.

He looks back to Lois and forces a small smile. “Yeah.”

Tom stays with the Wheelans, sleeping in the boys’ bedroom, in the bed closest to the door. Each night, once Vera and her parents are asleep, Kitty steals into his bedroom and tucks herself into the space beside him.

“It feels funny like this, doesn’t it?” she whispers to him, brushing her lips over his cheek as she throws her arms around him and presses herself into his back.

“What, you being the one sneaking around?” he says, falling onto his back so she can drape herself over his bare chest.

“It’s exciting,” she says, kissing a path along his jaw and down his neck. “I don’t see why you got to have all the fun.”

“Made it worth your while, didn’t I?” She can hear him grinning as she reaches the hollow of his throat. She swipes her tongue over his skin and delights when he suppresses a grunt and grasps at her hips.

She sits herself up, letting her nightgown hitch up to her hips as she starts to rock against him.

Tom slips a hand between her thighs and smiles when he swipes his thumb over her bare cunt. “Right little whore I’ve turned you into, hmm?”

Kitty braces herself against her chest and nods, as Tom presses into her, dragging from her entrance to her pearl.

“So fucking wet,” he whispers. “All for me?”

“All for you,” she breathes as he starts to circle over her most sensitive spot. “Fuck–”

Tom places a finger to her lips as he keeps working over her. “Shh, you have to be quiet, you know that.”

She nods again, dreamily, moving her hips against him, adding and withdrawing pressure to his movements, treading the line between pleasure and longing. Until she falls apart, shuddering, pressing her lips together tightly and snatching back the one wanton whimper that sounds in her throat.

“Good girl,” Tom snarls. His hips are bucking against her and his jaw is tight. “Good fucking girl.”

She wastes no time slipping his cock free from his briefs and sinks herself down onto his length. He’s done for with only a few rolls of her hips, pulling out before he finishes and spilling himself onto her stomach.

He’s so pretty when he comes, with a silent sigh, his jaw hanging open and his nostrils flaring. Every part of his body tenses, his abs, his neck, his shoulders, as he squeezes his eyes shut tight and throws his head back against the pillows.

Another perfect moment, she thinks, bright and beautiful, and already slipping away.

He registers with the navy again, and in a few weeks he has his next assignment.

Before he leaves, Kitty insists on getting out Eddie’s camera (even though he’d kill her if he knew he went near it), and takes some photos of Vera for Tom to keep while he’s away.

She takes some of him too. They’re hardly high art– he wouldn’t stop laughing at his own snarky comments, but she manages one ‘serious’ one.

His mouth is halfway to a smirk, his smile lines apparent around his mouth, but his eyes are dark and almost sinister. He hates it but there’s nothing he can do to stop her from keeping it in the envelope of one of his letters, under her pillow for safekeeping with the rest of the pieces she has of him.

He has leave in the new year, and then he’s back in October, just over two years since he first left.

By then Lois is gone. She had come into the shop, with a letter for Tom and Kitty in the pram. She had said she was going to leave her with Robina.

“Over my dead body you are,” Kitty said before she could think it through. Mam and dad were slightly horrified when she came home early from work with baby Vera in a pram and all of her belongings in a bag.

Vera is a right little character now, a stubborn but happy girl. When Tom comes back to Longsight, he stays with the Wheelans again, and he’s utterly devoted to his niece. When Kitty’s at work, he walks into the shop with Vera in his arms to buy her a bar of Cadbury’s ration chocolate. It’s awful and bitter, but it’s the only kind Vera has known and she treats it like gold dust.

When Mr Gregory gives Kitty a few days off, she and Tom take her for walks to the park. It’s freezing, but she’s happy enough wrapped up in a coat and a woolly hat, squealing with delight when Tom picks her up and places her on his shoulders.

How remarkable are kids, that they can so easily forget about worries and fears, as long as they have something that keeps them happy.

Even with Douglas and Lois gone, she hopes Tom knows that something still remains.

Time slips away too quickly. Suddenly Tom’s in his uniform again, ditty slung over his shoulder. He takes Vera into his arms and hugs her tightly into his chest. “Be good for your aunty Kitty,” he says, “and take care of her until I get back.”

Vera nods frantically.

He says goodbye to dad like an old friend, and even mam has warmed to him a bit now. Kitty sees the way her mother looks between her and Tom, the knowing nod of her head. It’s acceptance, and she’ll take it.

“Shall we?” Tom says, taking Kitty’s hand and leading her through the door.

It’s a short walk to the bus stop, then a twenty minute ride into the city. She keeps a tight hold of Tom’s hand the entire way.

They settle in seats at the back of the bus. It’s the middle of the day, kids are in school and their parents are at work. Only a few other seats are filled.

“Thank you,” Tom says as the bus pulls away from the stop.

“For what?” Kitty says.

“For being there,” he says, “for looking out for dad when he was around, for taking care of Vera, and me.”

She wants to frown, but can’t bring herself to. “Of course,” she says, stroking her thumb over the back of his hand. “Of course.”

Tom’s been assigned to HMS Prince of Wales, docked at Scapa Flow in Scotland. His train leaves within the hour, and the moment they step off the bus onto the busy streets of Manchester, she feels herself walking slower.

Tom keeps going, letting her fall behind him slightly, but never letting go of her.

No matter how she tries to drag this out, she cannot stop time altogether and they eventually reach the train station.

She could spend an eternity in his arms, cheek to cheek, breathing along with the rise and fall of his chest.

“I want to do right by you,” Tom says.

“What do you mean?” she mutters.

They still hold each other close; she doesn’t think she could bear to look at his face.

“Once the war is over, I’ll save up my wages, get us a place of our own. It’ll just be the two of us.”

“And Vera,” she adds.

“Yeah,” he says, stroking his hand up and down her back. “I’ll get a proper job. You should do that clerical training you’ve always talked about.”

No more sneaking around. No more nights cut short when he has to leave her.

He pulls away from her, keeping his hands on her waist. “I know your parents don’t trust me and your brothers think I’m a no-good-thieving-bastard. But I love you, Kitty, and I don’t know what I’d ever do without you.”

“Once the war is over?” she says.

“As soon as.”

“Tom,” she sighs. She doesn’t want to imagine the possibility, or speak it into existence, but it’s still there. “What if you don’t come back?”

Tom smiles with a small hum. “I’ve died once before, didn’t stop me coming back to you, did it?”

Kitty believes him wholeheartedly.

Thursday 11th December, 1941

Vera’s being fussy about her nap again. No matter how much Kitty tries to hush her, rock her, or hum a few lullabies, she just won’t settle.

Eventually she tries just holding Vera close to her chest, letting the side of her little head nestle just over her heart. She stops crying almost immediately.

“How hard could it be to look after a baby?” she asked herself when she refused to let Lois leave her daughter with Robina Chase. Quite hard, as it turns out.

The peace doesn’t last for long. Mam’s shoes come clattering down the stairs, the doorbell rings and Vera starts wailing again.

“Oh come here,” mam coos, taking Vera from Kitty’s arms. “You get the door, I’ll see this one gets her nap, eh?”

Kitty takes a quick breath before she opens the door. Hearing Vera cry makes her want to cry too.

The postman stands below the front step with a telegram in his hands.

“Catherine,” he says with a polite smile, “haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Been… busy,” she says through Vera’s wails.

The postman hands her the telegram and she reads over the address: Lois Bennett, 27 Slade Grove, Longsight, Manchester, only there’s no house for it to be delivered to, and no Lois to take it.

She feels the tears start to prickle in her eyes as she waves him off, and when she shuts the door she can no longer stand. Suddenly she’s on the floor, her back against the door, unable to catch her breath as hot, stinging tears stream down her face and the telegram crumples under her fist.

She thinks maybe Vera keeps crying and mam calls her name, trying to get her to stand but she can’t. She just… can’t. A sinking feeling washes over her and keeps her pinned down, like the waves pummeling against the shore, over and over again.

If there’s a telegram addressed to Lois, it can only mean one thing.

Tom.

Monday 24th December, 1945

The bus to Longsight stops outside the shop. She lifts Vera under the arms of her little red coat, onto the pavement, and takes a mittened hand in hers as they head inside. Mr Gregory sold it a few months ago and she doesn’t know the name of the new owners.

The woman behind the counter smiles down at Vera. “Aren’t you a gorgeous little madam?” she coos.

Vera rolls her eyes. “I’m not a baby, I’m five,” she says.

Kitty smiles to herself. “Bottle of sherry and a bag of Yorkshire mix, please,” she says. She crouches down beside Vera and spots a shelf of Christmas wrapping. “Go and pick out some ribbon for the bottle,” she whispers.

She pays for their items and Vera comes back with a bright red ribbon.

“Perfect,” Kitty says, and ties it into a bow around the neck.

As they walk towards Slade Grove, Kitty picks out some red sweets for Vera and a pear drop for herself. The rest she saves for later, finding she now prefers the sweets she never used to eat.

It’s nice and warm inside number 28. A Chorus of Christmas carols plays through the wireless from the kitchen, a backdrop to the bustle of the house. Mam is in the kitchen, making her final preparations for tomorrow’s dinner. Art helps her, albeit, his version of helping is pouring out gin and tonics. Dad, Eddie, Stevie and Connie are sat around the table, engrossed in a game of cards. But everyone stops when Vera comes bounding into the room, Kitty close behind her.

They each take their turns to smother her, and it feels good. Stevie practically jumps up and down as he hugs her, Art hands her a drink and Eddie hugs her the tightest.

She manages a sip of her drink and places it on the table as she goes to greet her dad, still mulling over his hand of cards as he kisses her cheek. Then she goes to her mam, and hands her the bottle of sherry.

“I chose the bow!” Vera proclaims proudly.

“And a lovely bow it is!” mam beams, placing the bottle amongst their Christmas stash of whisky, gin and dessert wine. “I have something for you, love,” she says.

“Oh?” Kitty asks as mam disappears into the front room. She comes back with a pot of poinsettias in a red pot, thick green leaves with bursts of blood red petals and golden seeds at their hearts.

“I thought we could put them out, tonight,” mam says.

Kitty opens her mouth to thank her, but she can’t. She nods as mam places her hand on her arm.

Even months after the war has ended, meat is still scarce, especially at this time of year, but mam had saved up her rations for a beautiful joint of beef, which she presents in the centre of the table.

It’s a cheerful occasion. The boys are rowdy, dad is quizzing Connie on her latest gig with her new band, mam is fussing over Vera.

Kitty watches them all. It’s hard not to feel like a ghost, an outlier, simply observing. Sometimes she thinks the others are still too scared to talk to her, in case she bursts into tears or shatters completely. She knows she won’t though. It’s Christmas. She’s supposed to be happy, surrounded by family and people she loves.

“We’re going to see her daddy for dinner tomorrow,” Vera says, stabbing at her boiled carrots.

“What’s Christmas dinner with Robina Chase like?” Stevie asks Kitty.

Her face freezes into a terrified smile to the others’ amusement. “No, it’s fine really,” she says. “Your grandma spoils you rotten, doesn’t she missus?”

Vera nods enthusiastically.

She’s such an easy girl to love. She has bright blue eyes, plump, rosy cheeks and dark brown curls, like her mother’s, kept in pigtails. But while her face is deceptively sweet, she has an awful habit for mischief and stubbornness. Kitty doesn’t mind that though. Girls should be stubborn, she thinks.

Stevie and Connie are expecting now. Dad insists it’s going to be a boy because he saw four magpies in the garden last week. They have a modest little house a few streets away and they’ve made it nice and homely. She’s had tea there and helped Stevie set up a crib for the nursery.

After they’ve eaten, dad insists they all go to midnight mass, as he does every year, despite Kitty’s insistence that it’s much too late for Vera. Still, she puts her in a pretty blue dress and shiny black leather shoes, and makes Stevie promise he’ll be the one to carry her home.

The church is mostly shadows at night, a few candles and lamps doing their best to fight off the darkness and the cold. Vera hates it. She pulls her woolly hat over her ears, swings her legs and on three occasions asks “is he done talking yet?” She likes the hymns though, even if she doesn’t know the words, mouthing some kind of nonsense that has them all in fits of giggles.

And once it’s over, they don’t follow the path down to the street. Kitty leads the way, with the pot of poinsettias in her hands. Stevie follows behind her, carrying a sleepy Vera in his arms, curled into his chest.

She stops before the grave she first stood by seventeen years ago.

Josie Bennett

Douglas Bennett

and in loving memory of Thomas Bennett, 1919-1941

Kitty crouches down to lay the poinsettias down when Vera gives a little squeak in protest. “I want to do it!” she cries.

“Come on then, missus,” Kitty says.

Stevie lowers Vera and she rubs her tired eyes as she staggers to Kitty. She tries to take the pot but with her mittens she can’t get a good grip on it.

“Together?” Kitty asks.

“Yes please,” Vera says.

They place the flowers down together, making sure they don’t obstruct the names.

“There,” Vera says with a little huff. She reaches out and puts her hand on the stone, brushing over the names of her granny and granddad Bennett, and then she traces over the letters of Tom’s name.

Even seeing it written in stone, she doesn’t think it will ever truly sink in.

A report said Tom had been in the makeshift aid centre on the main deck of the HMS Prince of Wales, when the final bomb hit. He could have run for the lifeboats. He would have had plenty of time. But he didn’t. He died to save his injured crewmates, men who would have never seen their families again.

For all the times he told her he would come back, for the life he promised they would make together, for all the nights she clung onto hope, she wanted to hate him for throwing it away.

She knows now that she can’t hate him. She could never hate him.

Vera falls back into Kitty’s arms. She catches her and places a gentle kiss to her soft cheek. “They would have loved you, you know,” Kitty says. “They would have loved that you’re brave, and funny, and that you drive everybody round the bend.”

Vera giggles and turns around, flinging her arms around her neck. “I love you, aunty Kitty,” she says.

Kitty hugs her tightly into her chest, with that strange sort of urge to just squeeze her and squeeze her and never let her go. “I love you too,” she whispers, so Vera won’t hear the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

Vera manages to walk down to the gate before Stevie has to carry her, and by the time they get back to the house, she’s fast asleep.

Kitty takes her in her arms and carries her up to the little box room. Connie and Stevie have the other big bedroom, and Eddie and Art are roughing it on the sofas in the lounge.

She places Vera down in the bed, as gently as she can, and takes off her shoes and coat so she won’t have to sleep in them.

It’s almost like a ritual now, but every time she finds herself in her old bedroom, she unlocks the window and brushes her fingers over the scuff mark on the windowsill.

Vera stirs slightly when she joins her, curling into Kitty when she places an arm around her. The bed is hardly big enough for the two of them, how she and Tom ever managed to fit seems somewhat miraculous.

Tom Bennett should have been hers to keep. They should have spent all their savings on a little terraced house or a flat in Manchester, squabbling over the things husbands and wives argue about and making up between the bedsheets. In the winters they would have walked home from the pub through the snow, hand in hand, and huddled for warmth at night. In the summers they would have spent their evenings in the park with a punnet of strawberries, taking the train to the coast on the weekends, to Southport or Blackpool. Maybe they would have had kids of their own. She often pictures a little girl with big blue eyes and a bright smile. They might have named her Josie, after Tom’s mother, and Vera would adore her.

There is so little left of him now, the bomb that hit the Bennett’s house ensured that well enough. She would have liked to have kept his lighter, his wristwatch, maybe some of his shirts.

Instead, she finds other ways to remember him. She reads his letters every night tracing over his terrible handwriting, the imprint of the words in the paper and his fingerprint in a smudge of ink. And she has the photo she took of him on Eddie’s camera. She keeps it framed, proudly on display on the mantle in their flat in the city.

She feels him, in the smell of grass, the flick of a lighter, the smoke from a cigarette, whispered secrets between lovers and Vera Bennett’s laugh, the way she squints her eyes and shows her teeth, just like he did.

Two decades of friendship and it wasn’t enough time. They should have known sooner, she should have knocked on his door more often and he should have spent less time getting into trouble. She should have told him to join the pacifists while it was still an option, she should have convinced him not to go away, she should have held him tighter and never, never have let him go.

In the end though, she doesn’t linger on the times they weren’t together. She remembers them being children together. She remembers the first night he climbed through her window. She remembers his warmth and his infuriating smirk. She remembers the first time they kissed and the nights they spent together, when she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. She remembers every time he told her he loved her, and she remembers every time she said it back.

She falls asleep to Vera’s fluttering breaths, the sound of the lads and Connie in the front room and the hymns playing on the radio.

The world is cruel and cold, but through it all she finds moments like these, when the tightness in her chest is replaced by something light and hopeful.

She clings to that feeling because tomorrow she’ll wake up surrounded by her family, and Vera’s little face will light up when she sees the gifts they’ve been saving for her. Dinner with Robina Chase will be worth it for the moments Harry will get with his little girl, and in the evening she’ll come home and laugh herself silly over glasses of whisky with her brothers.

For all the grief she remembers how he loved her. She’ll keep clinging to that feeling because Tom Bennett was hers, if only just for a moment.

Disclaimer: I only skimmed through the episodes that Tom wasn’t in and don’t actually know what Lois’ deal was, so I’m taking some creative liberties here.

Tags (comment to be added to either)

General taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy @theoneeyedprince @tsujifreya

Series taglist: @hanula18 @azxulaa @whoknows333

#my fics #tom bennett #tom bennett fanfiction #tom bennett fanfic #world on fire #wof #world on fire bbc #world on fire season 2 #world on fire fanfiction #tom bennett x ofc #tom bennett x female reader #tom bennett x y/n #tom bennet x reader #ewan mitchell #tom bennett smut

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